David Graham: Billy Graham Youth Foundation CEO on the projected costs of the Government's military academy scheme

The cost of mentoring young offenders as part of the Government's military-style academies could go as high as $100,000 per teenager, new documents show.

The Oranga Tamariki-run pilot - involving 10 hand-picked young offenders between the ages of 14-18 - will begin at the end of the month and continue for one year.

Billy Graham Youth Foundation CEO David Graham says this program could get ahead of the youth crime problem - if it's done well.

"What we need to be making sure of is that the young people who we're talking about, these young men between 14-18 years of age, that they are choosing good mentors.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ninety two. Ninety two is our text number. We're going
to take a look at that. Where the Finance Minister.
She's going to be with us right after five o'clock
this evening. Breakdown that tradable non tradable division. There has
been some improvement on the non tradable figure core inflation
down as well, but still a couple of things that
might be making the more pessimistic economists a little bit anxious.
So we'll bring you that very shortly right now though

(00:22):
it is eleven minutes past four and news talks. He'd
be and we've got some numbers out regarding the youth
offender boot camps. The Audering atomaticy run pilot program could
cost one hundred thousand dollars for every teenager in the program.
The twelve month program, we'll see one on one mentoring
for each teenager alongside travel, food education. Their residential phase

(00:44):
is going to give the youth time for counseling, physical activity,
and guest speakers will appear before them so they can
assist with their community transition. David Graham is the CEO
of the Billy Graham Youth Foundation and is with us
this afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Hi, David, got a jack.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
One hundred thousand dollars feels very expensive. Indeed, do you
reckon the cost is too steep?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm probably not too sure about that. I think that
if you look down stream and you see what a
cost to keep one of these, you know at the
stage men in the white Jair facility and what it
costs down and maindustice. If we can get in front
of us now at the cost of one hundred k,
probably not too worried about that. As long as we
can we can get it right.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
You've seen a bit more detail in the plan as
to how these book camps are going to work a
bit more detail about what these guys are going to
be up to on a day to day basis, So
do you have confidence that this could actually work?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Look, the we've been engaging this the last twelve months
and what we're really happy about is the positive shift
from what was campaigned on. So going from a twelve
month residential piece down to three months, that allows us
time to focus on what was always going to be
the hardest, most complex, but which is the transition. So yep, happy,

(02:04):
really happy to see that. A couple of points what
we need to be making sure of is that the
young people who were talking about these ten young men
between fourteen and seventeen, eighteen years of age, but they
are choosing to engage with the mentors that are in
front of them. You know, there's no slight on the mentors.
But the factor is that we're talking about you know,

(02:26):
some of the ten hardest case young people in the country.
They have low trust for adults and if you look
at their backgrounds, that's a good reason. So we need
to make all the relationship between the young person and
that mentor is at least not initially but pretty soon
on have been driven by the young person. And the

(02:48):
second thing that would say is that the task that
has put out this morning for these mentors, that's it's
by themselves. It really is an impossible feat. If the
job is from mental fixed one of these you know,
one of these keen hardest case young people to come
through within twelve months, that's not going to happen. So
what it requires is once that young person has transitioned

(03:11):
back into the community, for community leaders to wrap up
this young person right. And it's the small thing. You know,
they're there in this position in the first place because
of you know, these these climbs have gone down against
the community. But this is where the rother meets the road.
We need to have good relationships between young person and mentor,

(03:32):
and the community has got to wrap up these young
people once they're re engaged.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Well, it's the re engaging bit that's vital right now.
And you know, when you go through the relatively sparse
research into the previous iterations of boot camps, one message
that keep coming through from all of the official advice
is that boot camps are one thing, but actually it's
the support when these young people re into the community
that is way, way, way more important.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
That's right. What we saw for from the reviews is
that after eighteen months, that's when we start to see
that reoffending occur. And so what that tells us is
that these young people actually need to be handheld for
a greater period than the twelve months. And so if
we're going to fund a mentor or a frontline provider

(04:18):
to engage other of those twelve months, it has to
carry on past that. Let's just acknowledge how difficult it
is to do what we're talking about. You know, we're
talking about these these ten young men and you look
at where they've come from. They are the greatest victims
in the country to begin with, and then that sets
them up, you know, for what they've gone on to,

(04:40):
how they've gone on to offend. And so if we
can set up a good relationship between a mentor and
these young people and then second phase, these communities wrap
them up. Let's keep pumping support them to that because
that was just that's a profound thing if we can
pull that off.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, Hey, thanks for your Tom really appreciate David Graham there,
who is the chief executive of the Billy Graham Youth Foundation.
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